This invention relates to the filtering of water. More particularly, it relates to the filtering of water with zebra mussel.
The zebra mussel, Dreissena polymorpha, is known as one of the most troublesome exotics to invade North America. Since its arrival in Lake St. Claire in 1985, it has spread throughout most watersheds east of the Mississippi River causing major biofouling of water users (utilities, industry, municipalities, waterway traffic). While millions of dollars have been spent to control the mussel, little progress has been made. This demonstration suggests that zebra mussels can be used beneficially to pretreat water for removal of microbial organisms and removal of finely suspended particles. The practicality of this hypothesis was based on the premise that zebra mussels have an extraordinary ability to filter large quantities of water (1-liter/day/individual) and either process it as feces (via gut transport) or pseudofeces (materials filtered, bound in mucus, and rejected from the shell). Thus, these mussels function to remove water borne constituents directly from the water.